1776

I just got done watching the movie 1776 again. As I've said before it is my favorite movie. No matter how many times I watch it, I never grow tired of it.

It is 4 July 2006. America is now 230 yrs old. & even though a lot has changed, a lot is still the same. We struggle with many of the same concerns. What does it mean to be free? How do we protect our freedoms? What role should our government play?

Perhaps, that is part of the reason why the movie remains so fresh for me. What was begun back then is still unfolding.

I had to laugh at 1 scene. As a part of it the Congressional secretary, Charles Thompson, is reading a list of congressional committees. Some of them sound ridiculous. The fact is, they all were committees set up by the Continental Congress. The same is true of the resolutions mentioned. They were actually introduced & debated on. & things haven't changed. Look at some of the things the US Congress & our state legislatures waste their time on.

The other thing that is at the heart of the movie is the struggle that went on to bring about the birth of our nation. That we even came to be is a miracle. To get 13 colonies to agree wasn't easy. Each colony saw itself as its own country, not a part of a greater whole.

I will admit that the movie isn't totally accurate. When the script was published in book form, the authors answered the question by pointing out 4 things, those added, deleted, changed & surmised. For drama's sake, they did slightly rearrange the time line. Because the only information kept in the minutes were the final votes, the actual debates were based on things written by the participants at various times in the years following.

I've previously mentioned John Adams letter on the 3rd to his wife. Those lines are used as a basis of the song from which I got the title of this blog, Is Aybody There? Another line said by John Adams was actually said by his cousin Sam in a slightly different form. During the debate on the slavery clause John says posterity will never forgive us if we don't deal with the problem. Sam Adams line came close to predicting the actual date of the Civil War. Adams never owned a slave. Even Ben Franklin had owned a couple at 1 point in his life. He did set them free.& went on to found the 1st anti-slavery group in the Colonies. Jefferson, sadly, never followed through on freeing his slaves. & we have paid for the sins of slavery.

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed."

This is the heart of the Declaration. & the whole document is our country's seminal document. It laid the foundation for our Constitution, our laws, our very nature as a country. As I said, we are still debating the meaning of these words. Part of that is because some people do not want to accept their foundation, natural law, esp as expressed by St. Thomas Aquinas. But, that would mean acknowledging the existance of God, which many people do not want to do. All I will say for now is, to fail to do so is to turn this country from the direction it was meant to go. At that point we may have to do again what Jefferson wrote as the reasons for what they did then: " That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness."

I pray that God will turn this country back to it's roots & to Him. May we truly be a land who's laws reflect those unalienable rights for all from conception to natural death.